Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/250

 238 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

the possible authorship of this (presumedly mythical) Blihis, and the sug- gestion is accepted by the printer, who informs us on the inside of the cover, in a pretty design figuring a tombstone, that the aforesaid Master Blihis floruit circa 1200-1250. Suppose this to be the case, it is plain the production could not present the original type of the history, and antedate a poem composed at least a generation earlier.

The reader, however, may be left to decide on the literary merits of the French romance; to Mr. Evans is due thanks for having put a curious novel, so to speak, of the thirteenth century within the reach of the Eng- lish-speaking public.

W. W. Newell.

Bird Gods. By Charles de Kay. With an accompaniment of decora- tions by George Wharton Edwards. New York : A. S. Barnes & Co. (n. d.) Pp. xix, 249.

Mr. de Kay very justly remarks that in the study of man's groping to- ward religious belief, the influence of birds and beasts has been (until lately) neglected, whereas in the daily life of savages these were and are objects as important as the phenomena of light and air. He therefore undertakes to call attention to remains in the early lore of Europe of a very extensive connection of birds with gods, pointing to a worship of the bird as representative of the deity. He follows in mythology, epic poetry, and legends the traces of certain birds, selecting the dove, woodpecker, cuckoo, peacock, owl, swan, and eagle, and undertakes to show how their peculiarities and habits, observed with keenness, have laid the foundation for elements of various religions and mythologies, and supplied the skele- ton of plots on which have been built numerous myths and tragedies. He points out that modern historical science supposes rather mixture of con- quering races with their predecessors than eradication, and thinks that old beliefs reveal the influence of non-Aryan peoples. When the origin of a divinity or of one aspect of a divinity, depended on original bird nature, in the natural course of things the animal became humanized, and in the end the bird remained only as a symbol of which the meaning was forgot- ten. Recognition of the honor once assigned to birds, he suggests, may have some tendency to shame modern descendants of the worshippers into taking some pains to prevent the extinction of bird life.

The method of conception of the author may be illustrated by examples. Aphrodite is drawn by doves, because in the spring that bird shines in his finest feather, and is especially ardent in love-making. Herodotus relates the account of the prophetesses at Dodona, that the oracle was established at the command of a black dove, which settled in an oak-tree ; the grove at Dodona may have been presumed to have been a shrine of the Pelas- gians, sacred to divinities ruder than Zeus and his daughter. In the Greek dove-name oinas is to be found the source of the name ^Eneas, who is to be regarded as the dove god humanized. The capture of Venus by Vul- can in a golden net is the survival of a bird-characteristic. The prophetic quality of the woodpecker is explained by his habit of drumming on a dead

�� �